The sight in the right eye of a five-month-old infant has been saved by Kaplan Medical Center doctors after they surgically infused antibiotics directly into the socket.The eye had been overwhelmed by an infection caused by a rare virus.

The infant, from Ashdod, was rushed to the Rehovot hospital, where a new strain of an aggressive bacterium called Kingella kingae was diagnosed. Fortunately, the pathogen is so new that it is still not resistant to powerful antibiotics. His parents were so grateful that they changed the boy’s name from Hilai to Ilai.

The proteobacteria from the order of Neisseriales was first isolated in 1960, but until the 1990s culture techniques didn’t improve enough for it to become recognized as a significant cause of infection in young children.It often causes infections in the covering of the heart, the ligaments and bones and sometimes in the lungs and brain, but it has very rarely affected the eyes.

It is part of the bacterial flora of the throat in young children and transmitted from one child to another.

Prof. Ayala Pollack, an ophthalmologist at Kaplan, said it was the first time they had seen a breakout of the virulent bacteria. When the antibiotic was given directly into the hollow of the eye and the pathogen was weakened and destroyed, the doctors knew that the baby’s sight in the affected eye had been saved.

He was taken four weeks ago to Kaplan with a high fever, nausea, vomiting and a very red eye. Pollack, who examined him, said the condition was very hard to diagnose.

Finally, the source of the infection was identified by a multidisciplinary team, who said that it had reached the eye from the circulating blood.

“It was very unusual. During a very short time it could have led to complete blindness, thus it was very important to take him to the operating room to neutralize the advance of the infection,” she said.

His mother, Pninit, was very grateful.

“We arrived at the hospital when the eye was red, with a white spot on the iris,” she said. “We didn’t know what the problem was, and it was very scary, but the angels in white saved my baby.”

After the operation succeeded, the hospital rabbi, Zamir Cohen, recommended his name be changed to the similarly sounding Ilai, in memory of the brilliant rabbinical scholar of the Talmud from the second century CE.

Two important medical facilities were launched on Monday – a children’s hospital at Rehovot’s Kaplan Medical Center opened and the cornerstone was laid at an Ashdod hospital to be opened in five years.Both sites are within shooting range of Grad rockets from Gaza. The four-story children’s wing has been built to very high standards, medically, aesthetically and defensively, with reinforcement, generators and air filtration.

Children in the wards throughout the building’s 9,000 square meters of space may communicate with the medical staff, order lunch and participate in classes via advanced multimedia equipment at their bedside. Only two beds are in each room. The original hospital building was constructed in metalwalled huts in 1953. A major donation from the Legacy Foundation to Kaplan’s owner, Clalit Health Services, made the building possible.

Prime Minister and formally Health Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent his greetings to management, noting that 700,000 residents in the area will be served by the facility in times of quiet and in emergency. Hospital director Dr. Ya’acov Yahav said the children’s building is a “revolution” in pediatric medicine under one roof.

Meanwhile, the port city of Ashdod had a glimpse of what is due to become it’s first hospital, which in five years will serve an area population of 300,000. The public hospital will be owned and run by the private Assuta Medical Centers, which has been allowed by the government to offer certain private medical services there as well. It will cost Assuta NIS 650 million and have 300 inpatient beds.

Assuta chairman Prof. Yehoshua Shemer, directorgeneral Dr. Eitan Hai-Am, Ashdod Mayor Yehiel Lasry and others laid the cornerstone. Shemer, a former Health Ministry director-general, said Ashdod will have the most advanced hospital in the country when it opens. Lasry said some 1,000 residents will have jobs at the hospital, which will be university affiliated. Rahel Shmueli, a lawyer, is director- general of the planned hospital.

On January 2, 2012, in the presence of an assembled audience of 450 invited guests and citing the new pediatric center asa ” revolution in pediatric medicine”, Prof. Jacob Yahav, the CEO of Kaplan Medical Center, cut the ribbon and dedicated thenew KMC’sIDA CABAKOFF PEDIATRIC MEDICAL CENTER, after the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yona Metzger, consecrated the new facility and affixed a Mezuzah at its entrance.

The new Children’s Medical Center, the new home of the KMC’s Pediatric Department (which has been functioning in outdated and crowded facilities), is a technologically and logistically a state-of-the-art facility which will provide healthcare to over 60.000 children from among the 700.000 population under KMC’s care.

The New Ida Cabakoff Children's Medical Center

It would provide suitable conditions for future growth and would be capable of accommodating more young patients. Its structure, in addition to two floors of inpatient wards,,the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the temporary location of the Pediatric Emergency Room, has been built to the highest defense standards in Israel since the KMC is in the range of grad missiles from the Gaza Strip.

In his message to the KMC’s management, the Israel’s P.M, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, called the new Children’s Medical Center the most modern facility of its kind in Israel..

Prof. Eran Littersdorf, the Dean of the Medical School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, with which the KMC is affiliated,, wrote in his special message :

“The Kaplan Medical Center is of a special importance to the State of Israel, as continues serving, without a comparable alternative, the over 700.00 population in theheartland of the country.”… and:

“ The new Pediatric Medical Center will considerably improve the training of the medical students, graduates of the Medical School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as well as our future physicians, who would benefit from the medical environment adjusted to the needs of the 21st century and to the growing needs of the patient population. The new facility would also be of great importance in training students of the department of Social Welfare studying both at the Hebrew University and at the Hadassah School of Medicine’….

The attending guests represented a broad cross-section of the local and national leadership– the representatives of the Israeli government,, leadership of the Clalit, Academia, mayor of Rehovot and mayors of neighboring cities, religious and community laders as well as the KMC’s medical staff. (See picture gallery)

About Us

The American Friends of the Kaplan Medical Center was incorporated in 2008 as a non-for-profit 501 (c)(3), tax-exempt organization for the purpose of representing, developing and promoting in the … [Read More...]